Distant Feelings
by Xairathan
Summary: Sometimes, it feels like all of their relationship is a dream. Like none of it is real, except the desire to one day wake up and find that it was.
1. Sarishinohara

_I am always here for you_  
 _However small my being is to you,_  
 _and through all of the faults you've made, all the wrongs that you do,_  
 _I wouldn't mind if they bring me to my end_  
 _~ kran, Sarishinohara_

* * *

 _Sometimes, it feels like all of this is a dream. Like none of this is real, except the desire to one day wake up and find that it was._

It does feel like a dream, sometimes. When there's no way of telling when Asuka's next letter will come, those 'normal' days, the ones without any new words to read, feel like repetitions of ones that've come before.

The letters are found in two places, slipped through the slots of her locker at school, or wedged in the crack between the door and the lock at NERV. It's always a single sheet of notebook paper, one side blank, the other filled from top to bottom with Asuka's cramped handwriting with absolutely no regard for the printed lines.

Rei takes them home and keeps them hidden, bundled together by thin twine, in a drawer whose bottom is barely covered by the clothes it contains. The more memorable parts, she holds in her mind. She's not sure what her favorite thing that Asuka's written might be; it's either _you know your hands are really soft?_ , or _you smiled at me yesterday_. It would be like Asuka to notice the small things: the wrinkles in Rei's shirt that she smooths out, or the creases in Rei's letters where she'd held the paper tightly.

Rei leaves her replies in the same places. They're neat sentences written on blank pages, folded into thirds. Sometimes, on the weekends, she'll mail them, and Asuka will be reading something in class the next day that might be her own notes, or that might not be. She knows when it's her that Asuka's writing for, though. Asuka will fold her paper up in a little square, shove it in her bag, and maybe she'll look in the direction of Rei's desk to see if she's noticed. Rei, without fail, smiles back.

There will be no missed opportunities, Rei's decided. With only so much time left before Instrumentality, each day will count for more than Asuka will ever know. Her urgency, transmitted to Asuka through touches to her hands or the occasional quick embrace, meets Asuka's own eagerness, which transforms her gestures into moments burned into her mind, etched there by the warmth of Asuka's body and the knowledge that things such as this won't escape her, and will find her again.

It's Asuka's turn to reply, today. They'll see each other when they walk home, but Asuka still insists on racing out of the classroom to shove her letter in Rei's locker.

"You know you could just hand it to me, right?" Rei says when the reunite outside the school gate. Their classmates, moving past in a slow trickle, pay the pair no mind. It's just Asuka and Rei, talking after school about whatever it is pilots do. They don't notice how Asuka looks at Rei with an awestruck tenderness, as if there were stars in her eyes, and all the ones in the sky had originated from them.

"I didn't want to break the tradition," Asuka says. Rei sees her hand, draped loosely at her side, form a fist. She doesn't want to wait until everyone's gone. She wants to hold Rei's hand, now. She'll wait for no reason other than that Rei has asked for this- whatever this is between them- to be kept as hidden as possible, because that's what Asuka does. She fights holding nothing in reserve, and trusts unconditionally, and Rei wonders if she'd love unconditionally as well. Surely Asuka would- it doesn't seem like her not to.

"You did get it, right?" Asuka says. Rei nods at her bag, pats it gently. She hasn't read Asuka's letter yet- she'll do that when she gets back to her apartment- but it's there. "Good. I put something in there for you."

"You did? What is it?"

"You'll just have to find out later." In the courtyard, now drained of students, the trees begin to sway in the wind. "Let me know how you like it?" asks Asuka.

"I will."

"Right."

Asuka tentatively extends her hand. She's still as wary about this as Rei is, one of the few times Rei's ever seen her uncertain. Her relationships, though numerous, have never lasted for longer than a month, and this is the first to contain any semblance of mutual intimacy. Asuka's fingers still shake when their hands touch, and she doesn't know whether to walk slightly ahead of Rei, or right by her side. It may be Asuka who leads, but it's Rei who guides her, who Asuka relies on.

"You put another one in my locker today?" says Asuka.

"Another?"

"Sunflower. Duh."

"Yes. I did that." Rei's cheeks are warming, as they tend to do when Asuka is close to her. "What did you do with it?"

"Wrapped it up and put it in my bag, of course. I don't even know where you're getting them from."

"There are flower shops in Tokyo-3, Asuka."

"If you give me any more, Misato might ask questions," laughs Asuka. "I'm keeping them in a cup in my room. Shinji's already started giving me weird looks."

"You can tell them that an admirer at school gave them to you."

"That 'admirer' would have to be psychic. I haven't told anyone I like sunflowers except you."

"Really?" says Rei, her cheeks heating further. Here's another secret of Asuka's, one that speaks to how little of herself she gives away, if even her likes are kept locked away from others. "Should I get you something else, then?"

"Sunflowers are fine, just don't get them too often. I think we might get busted if someone spotted you carrying one into NERV."

"Yes. That would be likely."

Their pace slows. The pavement beneath their feet has grown uneven, though it's not yet cracked and chipped like the sidewalks by Rei's apartment. They're nearing the place where they must part, Asuka turning towards the more populated area of Tokyo-3, and Rei towards the outskirts.

"Are you sure you don't want to come over this time?" says Asuka. "I'm sure Misato wouldn't mind. Shinji wouldn't, either."

"I appreciate the offer, but I cannot." Rei looks down, her gaze falling on their joined hands. "Maybe someday," she whispers. That _someday_ could only come in a dream, but Asuka doesn't need to know that. The hope that Rei might one day agree is something Rei doesn't have in her to snuff out.

"Alright, well, the offer stands." Asuka's fingers tug at Rei's. There's a space between their hands now, slowly growing larger. The cracks become gaps, and then they separate, the coolness of the afternoon breeze chilling Rei's skin. "Remember to open that letter."

"I will," says Rei. She always remembers. It's the first thing she does when she gets back, the only thing she has to look forward to. These gifts of Asuka's, more tangible and personal than orders, are the only things that've been given to Rei Ayanami as a person, and not as a convenient tool for Instrumentality.

"I'll see you tomorrow." Asuka shuffles back. She's always the first one to go. It might be because she knows that Rei won't be the one to part ways with her, that Rei would be content standing there all day, watching her, so long as they were close.

"Goodbye, Asuka."

Rei's eyes follow her until she's disappeared around a corner. She wonders if now was the time when she should've taken her chance and kissed Asuka on the cheek. There will be another opportunity, or maybe Asuka will be the one to kiss her first, but the thought keeps Rei there until the red of the setting sun shines into her face, and Rei turns away.

The walk back to her apartment is uneventful, and completely devoid of others. If Rei reached into her bag and opened Asuka's note now, there would be no one to see. She could, but she waits until she's made it to her building and ascended the grey, crumbling stairway with its equally bleak walls.

Seated on her bed, Rei finally opens her bag and reaches into it. Her fingertips brush the spine of her notebook, past it, feeling for the square shape of Asuka's note. She draws it out, unfolds it, and something thin and red drops into her lap. Rei looks to the letter for an explanation and finds it scrawled across the bottom, the words barely discernible: _I know you said you don't like red, but maybe you would for me?_

Rei sets the letter aside, picking up the ribbon in her lap. It's the same kind as the ones on their uniforms; this one would have to be Asuka's. Of course- only Asuka would think of such a sentimental gift, one subtle enough to go unnoticed by anyone other than them. "I will," Rei whispers to the quiet of her apartment, and to the letter. She curls up the ribbon and places it on the table by her bed, amidst the bottles of pills and the single beaker of water that she's been using as a cup. Now that will be the first thing she sees when she wakes up, and carried around with her: a piece of Asuka, a reminder, and perhaps a promise of something more.

* * *

Asuka's hand has a warmth like no other. There's something in it like a fire, licking away at Rei's skin the longer they touch, a sensation unlike any she's felt before. There is the comfort of her bed, the heat of the sun, and then there's Asuka.

Each time they've met, Rei's found a reason to keep Asuka for a little longer. They wait at the school gates, talking until not only their peers but the teachers have left; they walk slowly home, but the next day there never fails to be a letter slipped into a locker, and sometimes when it's Rei's turn, a golden flower.

The sun, sinking lower on the horizon each day as winter draws nearer, throws the long shadows of buildings over Asuka and Rei as they walk back. Today, they're trying something different: the long way home, a path winding far from the populated areas of the city and through the buildings that have never been lived in, the shop fronts whose glass panes are still clear as the day they were placed.

"We're coming through here again next time," Asuka says. "It's nice and quiet here."

"It is," Rei says serenely. Here, the world cannot touch them. Here the world is simply a fixture, something to occupy the space around her and Asuka, and to be traveled in a distant future where they've grown to know everything about each other, and need something new to explore. "I am surprised that no one else is here."

"If they were, they'd ruin it. Besides, there's nothing to be here for."

"There is you."

"And what if I go home? Will you follow me back this time?"

Asuka's laughter rings out among the buildings; her head is thrown back, hair catching the last strands of sunlight, so she doesn't see the flicker of unease that crosses Rei's face. When her eyes settle on Rei again, Rei has that same patient smile, and she clings to Asuka's hand a little tighter. In spite of this new path, there are buildings in the distance that Rei can recognize, and they're telling her that Asuka will have to go soon.

"I am unable to, Asuka," she says.

"Another time, then."

Asuka's still unaware, blissfully so, of why Rei will never be able to go back with her. It's one of the few things Rei will keep from her, if only to ensure Asuka's continued happiness. "Yes. Some other time."

"I didn't get a letter from you today," Asuka says. Her hand, in the process of freeing itself from Rei's, pauses. "Did you leave it at home, or something?"

"I sent you one." Rei's brow furrows, and she squints at Asuka. The sun, disappearing behind the horizon, dances golden in her eyes. "I sent it last weekend. Did you not receive it?"

"Didn't get anything." Asuka frowns, narrowing her eyes in that way that Rei knows means she's realized something. "I didn't check the mail on Saturday. Misato did. She probably just shoved it all somewhere thinking it was part of the bills. I'll find it tonight."

Asuka's fingers slip out from between Rei's, unexpectedly. Rei is left grasping at air: she hadn't meant to let go, or realized if she even did.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Asuka says. She's still within arm's reach. Rei could step forward and kiss her, but then Asuka smiles at her, and it's as if Rei has forgotten how to breathe. By the time she sucks in some air- cool against her lungs, filling her with a daring she wouldn't have had before- Asuka has moved away, and she's gone.

Rei stands for a while on the street corner, watching Asuka walk into and merge with the setting sun until the shadows of the buildings overtake her. That's Rei's sign to go. She turns around, and with nothing but a vague sense of where she's going, finds her way home.

The evening chill has settled over the city when Rei approaches her building. Her uniform fails to shield her, but the hand that had held Asuka's is still warm. Rei holds it close to herself as she ascends the stairs and nears her apartment.

Lost in her own thoughts and the memory of Asuka's smile, Rei doesn't notice that her door is ajar when she walks in. Commander Ikari is there, and two men from Section 2; they stand in the middle of the room, and Rei can read nothing in the blankness of their faces.

The Commander shifts, reaching into the breast pocket of his jacket. He must be here to deliver orders. There would be no other reason why he would be here with an escort, so late at night. Rei steps forward to receive them, but freezes mid-stride. There is no seal on the paper that the Commander holds out to her with a flourish, but a stamp. Through the wide tear in the envelope, Rei sees her own handwriting.

"Take it," the Commander says. Rei reaches out, shaking so badly that it takes multiple tries to grip the letter. "You are not to contact the Second Child in such a manner again. You are to end your friendship with her, as it is not a part of the plan. Am I clear?"

"Yes," Rei answers, immediately. To hesitate would have given reason for doubt. To defy the Commander would mean replacement. Commander Ikari nods and leaves the apartment, his escort following closely behind. They shut the door, leaving Rei in the dark and moonlight with the sound of paper crinkling in her fist, the only audible indication of the shattering of her heart.


	2. Yonjuunana

_Can I dream, can I think, while I'm just so in love with you?  
_ _That our paths, no, no matter what we choose_  
 _Won't divide us_  
 _And leave me leaving you?_  
 _\- JubyPhonic, Yonjuunana_

* * *

There was no letter back. There hasn't been for days. What was first a mistake, something misplaced, has turned into a cold silence between them that can't seem to be shaken. No longer do they talk in the locker rooms; Rei comes, she changes, and she leaves. Asuka wonders if the shake of Rei's head she'd thought she'd seen was real, or just something imagined to make her feel a little better about herself.

She might have just dreamt it up. She might be trying to rationalize waiting here, seated atop the brick wall in front of the school, the rough rocks cooling under her fingers as the sun's rays shift away from them. It's entirely possible that Rei left the school another way- through the back, or slipping out between the traveling packs of other students. Here under the fading sun, the last, dying embers of Asuka's hope flicker like the shadows of the rustling trees, through which Rei should be appearing any moment now, that smile on her face, the simple touch of her hand enough to warm the whole of Asuka's body and put a blush on her cheeks.

Rei didn't look at her in class at all today. Asuka tightens her grasp on her bag, filled with the crumpled balls of letters that she hadn't seen fit to give to Rei, that fell pathetically short of conveying the emotions swirling in her chest, a vortex of addled thoughts and despair. Even if she'd managed to get those words onto the paper, would she have had it in her to give them to Rei? Asuka believes she would have; she must, anything less would imply she was giving up on Rei, on _them._

A small wisp of a shadow appears on the concrete walkway, approaching where Asuka sits. Asuka hops down from the wall, standing in the center of the gateway. Sucking in a breath, she realizes there's an aching in her chest that wasn't there before; she's been holding her breath at the sight of Rei, or maybe the embers there have fired up and now seek to burn her from the inside out.

"Rei," Asuka says. She tries to smile, but it comes out weak and uncertain, as genuine as Rei's feelings for her must have been. That would be the only reason why Rei would suddenly stop speaking to her, right? "Why are you still here so late?"

"You are here late as well."

"I was waiting for you."

Here it is, the release of that pressure that's been building in Asuka's chest all afternoon. Her already fragile expression begins to crumble; longing shines in her eyes, which for so long have fought back tears in hope of this one moment, and the rest of her will follow soon.

"You should not have," says Rei. Her words are terse, a scolding and a warning in one. Asuka looks for the softness in her tone that she's grown to associate with Rei, and there's none of it. "You should return home, Soryu. I am going home, too."

"We can walk together, right?" Asuka's smile widens a little, becoming sickly. "Since we take the same route."

"We should not."

"Please."

It wasn't an outright denial. Rei didn't say they couldn't. They're close now, nearly face to face, but none of what's on Asuka's is mirrored on Rei's. She is sure of herself, determined only to go home. There is no space for Asuka beside her, not unless Asuka tries to make one for herself.

"I won't ask for anything else," Asuka whispers. She'll keep herself from reaching for Rei's hand, from meeting her eyes. She won't think of what it would be like to hold Rei, and to kiss her in front of her apartment building, the last moments of daylight preserved in the memory of it.

"Very well." Rei steps around Asuka, continuing on her way as if their entire conversation was only a distraction, and now it's back to normal. Asuka hurries after her, feet pattering unevenly after Rei's measured steps. This time, rather than being content to wander aimlessly with Asuka, Rei has a destination in mind.

"So, um…" Asuka's tongue darts out, moistening lips that have gone dry while waiting for Rei to appear. "You were in there an hour at least. Is everything okay?"

"I am fine, Soryu. You should be more concerned with yourself."

"I just wanted to know how you were doing," Asuka says. _I just want you to be alright. I just want to make sure you're happy_.

"There is nothing to be worried about."

"Yeah. Okay."

Subdued, Asuka lets Rei move a step ahead of her. It was always like this, she realizes. She's been trailing after Rei; now that Rei is gone, Asuka knows the path she has to walk, but doesn't know how she'll take it. The way, once marked by Rei's constant presence, has been lost.

It might be because of Rei's quicker pace, or Asuka's own desire for this walk not to end, that too soon the buildings that rise before them are ones Asuka recognizes. Rei stops at the corner of the block they usually part at, though she does not look at Asuka. "You have walked me home," she says. Her soft voice is flat, inflectionless. "You should go."

"Do you really want me to?"

Rei lifts her head, catching Asuka in her periphery. Nothing that Asuka used to find comforting in those eyes is there. Rei has become someone entirely different; what feelings there may have been between them mean nothing to her, so clearly that Asuka doesn't have to ask to confirm it.

"Alright," Asuka says. "I'll go. Will you let me hug you?"

She'd said she would not ask for anything more. Asuka does not expect Rei to approach her, arms stiff and locked, and it's even more unexpected when that rigid hug turns inviting as they touch. Rei lays her cheek gingerly on Asuka's shoulder, close enough for Asuka's hair to drape across her face, concealing the words whispered to Asuka.

"The Commander knows."

Asuka's mouth goes dry again. Rei disentangles herself from Asuka, deliberately, methodically. Her face is a mask as she steps back in the direction of her apartment. "We will not do this again, Soryu," she says. "You should not wait for me any longer. It will be fruitless."

"I understand."

Rei turns and starts to go. Asuka lifts a hand after her, watches Rei disappear through the gap between her fingers. She'd known all along that this was what had to come; there were only ever two ways this could end, with a separation or the defeat of the Angels, and some miraculous desire of Rei's that would keep them together. Asuka, too eager to accept anyone who wouldn't toss her aside, needed no other reason to stay with Rei.

Above, the street lamps start flickering on, their buzzing filling the air and the emptiness in Asuka's mind that her thoughts would normally occupy. She turns and mechanically journeys toward Misato's apartment, school bag barely hanging from limp fingertips. It's not until she gets home and has sealed the door of her room behind her that she bothers to consider what's happened and what must be done: a dismantling of her own expectations, a reconciliation that once again, she's been abandoned by someone she thought cared.

Asuka opens her bag, flinging its contents at the trash bin in the corner of her room. The crumpled letters from earlier spill out, tumbling into the bin and bouncing around on the floor. The last thing to fall from Asuka's bag is a single plucked sunflower, its petals long since scattered in the wind. She picks it up, rolls the stem between her fingers. This flower she remembers among all the others; it was the second one Rei had given to her, its stem barely wedged into the slots in her locker, and Asuka had pulled the petals off it one by one as she went home that day. _I'll tell Rei how I feel about her_ , she'd thought. _No, I wont._

She let the flower decide for her, and it told her to wait. It told her not to take that kiss from Rei's cheek that she wanted to; it told her to wait, that Rei's feelings would become clearer soon, and then she could proceed. A moment passes. Asuka drops the stem into the trash and seizes the letters that fell around it on the floor, covering the flower with them and pushing it all down towards the bottom. She'll do the same with her feelings, too; if she buries them, refuses to acknowledge their presence, then maybe they'll fade soon enough.

Only, they won't. Asuka finds her way to the bed as her legs give way, catching herself on it with one arm. She can't bury memories, or bring herself to forget what the sound of Rei's laugh was like, how she used to smile when Asuka touched her. Those thoughts will linger, spectres of what could have been. They'll follow Asuka into her dreams, cutting off her escape, and remind her of the reality that waits for her when she awakes.

* * *

What happened between them those months before, the memories that Asuka holds within her tentatively, afraid that they might break, are beginning to feel more like a dream that has yet to pass over her. Her hand no longer remembers the feel of Rei's, but Asuka finds herself grasping for it when she wakes in the night, reaching for air, a sound in her throat that never leaves, that might be Rei's name.

And yet, at night, it's easier to bear being alone. When they're in the locker rooms together, the scant distance between them feels more like miles; Asuka will look up, and Rei will be there, her hands looking as soft as Asuka remembers them to be. Or, if she's unlucky, her eyes will fall upon Rei's lips: pink, inviting, and Asuka imagines they would be the softest part of her. She would have kissed them slowly, deliberately, holding not only her breath, but all of Rei's attention. If she was lucky, Rei would kiss her back-

Asuka swings her hand forward. The locker in front of her slams shut, and she startles with a jump. She'd lost herself again, trying to content herself with daydreams that shatter at the first touch of reality upon them. Asuka sneaks a glance across the room. Rei has hung up her plugsuit and is changing back into her uniform, taking special care with the ribbon she's tying around her neck. Her hands, unlike Asuka's don't tremble. They're as sure as they've ever been, unaffected by this separation from Asuka, as if they'd never needed her, and the act of holding her was one done solely for Asuka's sake.

Asuka grabs her school bag and starts towards the door. It'd been stupid of her, thinking that beyond EVA, there might be a future for her. She's always been a pilot, different, and no one had ever wanted her for a reason other than that. Her hope that what existed between herself and Rei could be real was misplaced, as all her hopes have been.

Halfway to the door, Asuka feels something brush her hand. Her head snaps up. The fingers on her knuckles don't register right away, but Rei is closer than before. From her eyes alone, Asuka can tell that she wants to say something that would be better off left unspoken. Nothing Rei can say now, could soothe the parts of her that want to slam her hands into Rei's lockers and shout at her at the top of her lungs, asking why she'd bothered to let Asuka come close if this was the only way it might end.

"This is over, isn't it?" Asuka says. Her voice, loud but trembling, nearly drowns out the quiet request of Rei's that leaves her through lips that barely move.

"Do not leave me."

Asuka stops dead, her hand still extended towards the door. In the corner of her eye, Rei shuffles away, back towards her locker. She shrinks against it, fiddling with the buttons on her shirt, her apparent burst of courage spent. Behind her, Asuka turns, and that hand shifts toward her. Rei makes no sign that she'll look away from her locker, that she might take it.

"Rei?" Asuka says. Surely she hadn't imagined the desperation that crossed Rei's face in those brief seconds they'd been looking at one another. Of course Rei wouldn't have wanted this to end, right? "Rei?" she tries again.

The First Child gives Asuka no response, not even the slight shake of her head that Asuka's certain was not a hallucination, but an attempt at a goodbye that Rei hadn't been able to say. She's finished changing, there's nothing left on her uniform to adjust, but still Rei stands with her back to Asuka. She seems, briefly, invisible to Asuka: that's not Rei that's there, but the memory of her, something intangible that will disappear as soon as Asuka stops looking at it.

Slowly, Asuka backs toward the door. She doesn't take her eyes off Rei. If she doesn't, maybe Rei will look at her at the last second, or Asuka might wake up and find this to be another dream. She passes backwards over the threshold, door swinging into her field of vision, and Rei is taken from her sight.

The door shuts audibly a second later. Asuka doesn't bother staring at it, at Rei who she knows would be behind it still. She could open it again, but that would mean finding out what Rei is doing, answering that question of whether Rei misses her or not, and the prospect of finding that this answer isn't what she'd want keeps Asuka from going back in.

She goes instead to the tram station, where she'll be ferried back to the city surface. At this time of day, no one is heading back up. Asuka grabs the single seat at the very back of the empty car, a space more than sufficient for herself, or that could fit two growing teenagers, if they squeezed close together.

They used to hold hands here, Asuka thinks. Under the cover of the seats in front of them, she would take Rei's hands in hers, rub her thumbs along the backs of them, and not let go until they'd stopped at the station in the city. The rides were only several minutes, but they were one of the few things that Asuka had to look forward to: Shinji might be the better pilot, but Asuka was no longer alone.

At least, that used to be true. Gritting her teeth, Asuka bends at the waist. The ache in her chest that she's denied existed for so long has become too painful to ignore. The tram hisses around her, slowly beginning to pull out of the station. Asuka curls up further, panting, as if her voice might be able to drown out the echoes in the car around her, further evidence that she's alone. It wouldn't matter, she tells herself, if Rei was in there with her, too. Rei still wouldn't look her way. Asuka could be the brightest star in the sky, and all Rei would do would be to sit there, a pale moon reflecting the futile, fervent light being projected towards her.

The car rattles as it travels up the track, jostling Asuka from side to side. Something about the movement of her body, or just the fatigue that plagues it, rattles something loose in her chest. It takes a moment for her to realize what it is; by the time she does, there are too many tears on her face to try and stem the flow, and her sobs drown out the sounds of the tram.


	3. Akaito

_All of days I thought I loved you_  
 _Followed by phases where I'd hate you_  
 _Though I would try to leave you far behind_  
 _I'd hear your voice that would bind my mind_  
 _Even now, if I could hold you_  
 _Thinking about the pain that pierces my heart through_  
 _Many times I've tried_  
 _But it's impossible for me to say goodbye_  
 _\- Jefferz, Akaito_

* * *

Her dream is different tonight. The last that Asuka remembers of it are Rei's fingers on her cheek before her eyes fly open, plunging her back into the dimness of her room.

The winter storms have begun to sweep through Japan, drenching the city with rain that seems to have no end. It hammers on the windows, rattling them, like it's persistently trying to get in and take up residence in Asuka's room. It reminds Asuka of herself, trying to reach Rei, and that this rain is more welcome to Rei than she would be.

Asuka's spine pops as she sits up, echoing the thunder rumbling from the other side of the city. The clock beside her says it's 3, but under the cover of clouds, it could be any time of the day. The clock might be tricking her, as her own emotions had; after all, she'd believed what Rei had said. She'd thought, for those fleeting weeks that seem to have happened to another person, not to Asuka Langley Soryu, that for the first time since Kyoko left her, she might not have to be alone.

A thought wanders across her mind, one that's visited her frequently. Asuka pushes her blankets aside with a furious swipe of her arm and stumbles from the bed, staggering as her feet hit the floor a half-second sooner than she'd anticipated. She catches herself on the edge of her desk- what if she'd hit it, she wonders for a second; what if she'd hurt herself, what would Rei think?- and tugs at a drawer. It wouldn't matter to Rei. Asuka pulls a pen and paper from the drawer and shuts it, seats herself on the rickety, uncomfortable chair that she's grown more and more used to. Rei has moved on by now.

Only Asuka hasn't moved on, and it shows. The bags of trash she brings outside are laden with equal amounts used tissues and crumpled balls of paper, and sometimes a pen that she's drained of ink. She's on her- fourth? Fifth?- pen by now, and there's not a letter to show for it. Asuka won't do to Rei what she does to herself; though she doesn't think it'd matter to Rei, she won't dredge up those memories of held hands and quiet moments and almost-kisses that she believed, that she continues to believe in vain, might have turned into kisses if only she'd had the courage.

 _The Commander knows_. They were supposed to be able to work past this. They are EVA pilots; there's nothing in the world that could stop them- except, Asuka now knows, Rei's own loyalty to the Commander. The lunches they'd eaten in secret on the school rooftop, that Asuka had to plan days in advance for so she wouldn't have to rely on Shinji for food or Hikari to make sure the rooftop door was open, meant nothing. Their hushed conversations in the locker rooms, held in whispers, must have gone unremembered by Rei; she must not recall the day that Asuka grabbed her wrist, desperate, and pleaded for her to stay, and Rei had answered, _I will, you have me._

Asuka's pen scratches the paper, and at last the suffocating warmth of her room is broken. Her pen, moving in time with the pattering of the raindrops, will not be stopped until Asuka is done, or she's used up both sides of the paper. That's how it's always been- she didn't think so much about her letters like Rei did, she just wrote, and perhaps that had been too much. She'd shown Rei too much of herself too quickly, and she the echoes of that choice plague her still. Asuka will find herself, sometimes, with her mouth open and ready to speak to a girl that's long since left her side, and though her mind will have fabricated an answer, there will be no familiar voice to say it. Rei may speak in class and to the Commander when she must, but she'll never answer Asuka again.

Lightning flares across the sky somewhere near: there's an almost simultaneous call of thunder, loud enough to rattle the windows and set off several car alarms, which chirp discordantly beneath the sounds of the rain. Rei is out there, thinks Asuka, tucked in her bed and sleeping peacefully, undisturbed by the storm. She may be out there, but she'll never come back. Asuka blinks twice, rapidly. The sudden brightness of the lightning must have hurt her eyes; they burn- something wet and warm splashes against her thumb, and a damp, grey stain is spreading across the letter.

It's nearly done, anyway. Asuka's writing stretches the length of the page, dancing haphazardly along the bottom edge of it. The pen advances again, scribbling madly. The longer she sits here, the closer Asuka will come to the thought she forbids herself from considering, that if Rei would take her back- that if Rei might want her again, somehow- Asuka would return to Rei's side as easily as the first day she'd gone. Who else would there be who could stir in her any feeling other than anger?

The ball of Asuka's pen scratches something solid. She's hit wood. A word trails off the edge of the paper, incomplete, but the other side of the page is something Asuka won't be dealing with tonight. Her hands seize the letter and scrunch it up, twisting and crumpling it beyond recognition. She goes to tear it, and that's when her strength leaves her all at once: her fingers curl around the edges, but this letter is one that refuses to be ripped apart. Asuka yanks again at her desk, at the drawer below the first. Before it's opened all the way, a swarm of crinkled edges springs up from within, the same cold white as Rei's skin. Asuka smooths her letter out, shoves it on top, and slams the drawer back in place.

Thunder rolls off the buildings again, closer to the heart of the city. On the same shaky legs that took her to her desk, Asuka stands and wobbles her way back over to the bed. That drawer is getting full; she'll have to clean it out someday soon, destroy those memories she refuses to let leave her. She might have need of them if Rei comes back, even if that day might never arrive.

Curled up in bed, Asuka holds her pillow close to her face. Sleep is not far, now. It never is in times like these. It hovers over her, a waiting predator, swooping down when her eyes are closed to fill her dreams with images of Rei, of Asuka's hand around her shoulder, and to take from her those thoughts that dare intrude and try to remind her that Rei no longer belongs in her arms, nor she in Rei's.

* * *

Asuka's mind has rarely ever paid attention in class, but today it focuses in on one thing, rather than wandering randomly. She's focused on a moment, one she knows shouldn't have happened, but somehow it did. That scraping of Rei's shoulder against hers in the locker room yesterday couldn't have been a mistake, not when it felt so much like their touches from before, not the rough knocking together that their collision should've been, but more like a soft and fleeting connection, simultaneously physical and intangible.

Rei is looking out the window again. She's returned to doing that, and she's too far from Asuka's seat for Asuka to see where she's looking. It's probably for the best. Catching sight of Rei's eyes would tell her whether she's right, that Rei is looking at her, thinking of her, wishing for the same return to days before as Asuka.

Asuka blinks, and the room shifts. The floor is so much further away; her desk is cold and clammy, like her skin, and everything appears as a blur to her save for two points of red, staring at her from across the class. The rest of reality has been wiped away, save for those eyes and the girl who watches Asuka. How could it not have been? How could this world that Asuka's reconstructed, one in which she's preparing herself again to remain alone, withstand a gaze such as that?

The teacher clears his throat, loudly, from his place at the front of the classroom. Rei's head swivels away, back towards the window, and the moment is undone. Asuka's palms hit the top of her desk, damp with sweat. A second later, Asuka herself goes down atop her arms. What just happened couldn't have been real. It was a trick of her vision, a hallucination brought on by too many hours spent awake, crying, and not enough spent sleeping. Rei wouldn't look at her like that. Rei has moved on.

Asuka stays with her face shielded from her classmates, from Rei, until lunch. When Hikari comes and taps her on the shoulder, Asuka tells her she'd just fallen asleep. It's the first lie she's told Hikari; it's believed whole-heartedly. Hikari turns away, moving to sit with Toji, and Asuka is left to wonder whether she's the one that lie came from, or if somehow Rei's apparent skill at deception has rubbed off on her, and now she'll spread it to someone else.

The scraping of a chair grates at Asuka's ear. Her eyes snap toward it, and catch Rei as she rises from her seat, clutching a small paper bag in her pale hands. Her lunch, Asuka thinks. For the first time in however long, Rei's brought a lunch.

And she's headed this way. Asuka ducks her head, pretending to be busy rooting through her own bag for her lunch box. She doesn't expect to feel Rei's fingers sliding over her shoulder, their touch too firm to be an accident, but quick enough to be casual. Asuka looks up- Rei's eyes dart toward the classroom door, then upwards at the ceiling- and then Rei is gone through those doors, leaving Asuka baffled not by her actions, but by what they're supposed to mean. Outside- the roof- it couldn't be-

Asuka snatches her lunch from her bag. The classroom spins around her as she stands, blood draining from her face, but she makes it to the door. Her hand darts out, and the weight of her body carries her around the threshold, into the empty hall. If Rei came out here, she's gone already. Asuka's fingers slip free of the doorway, trailing along the white plaster wall. She could turn and go back inside, but that was never an option. Rei's called her here, she knows it.

Making it up the stairs is a little harder. Asuka has to stop, repeatedly, so she doesn't lose her balance on steps that seem to spin when she looks at them for longer than a second. When she does make it to the top, there's the door, usually locked during school hours. Today, it's open.

She finds Rei already in their usual place, the little shaded area beside the stairwell that fully covers both of them if they sit close together. Rei's opened her bag and has a sandwich in her hands, already half-eaten. She doesn't say anything, not when Asuka sits beside her; not when she asks, "What's going on?"; not until she's finished eating and wiped her hands on the napkin she brought with her.

"Asuka?" Rei says. Asuka pushes her lunch, barely touched, to the side. She nods encouragingly to Rei, hoping Rei will continue so she can hear more of that voice she's missed, that she regrets not trying to remember and spent nights trying to recall. "Do you think that… you would ever be able to forgive a girl like me?"

"I don't understand," says Asuka. "A girl like you?" Rei nods, but no explanation is forthcoming. She tugs her legs up closer to herself, fingers moving to lock with each other and secure Rei into the little ball that Asuka knows her to form when she's distressed. "Rei, of course I'll forgive you-"

She reaches out, hoping to touch Rei, to pull her into a hug. Rei jerks away so violently that at first Asuka thinks she might have fallen, but as she moves closer she sees the look on Rei's face. There's something akin to terror there, hidden behind a flickering veil of a grief that borders on tears. In that second that Asuka hesitates, Rei gathers her bag up and scrambles to her feet. She's rounded the corner before Asuka can react or even speak again, and Asuka hears the slam of the metal door behind her, masking the sounds of Rei's descent down the stairs.

Yet again, she's been left alone. Asuka lowers her hand, staring at the lunch she brought. She's no longer hungry, but she can't bring herself to pack it up and go and chase after Rei. Instead, she holds her hand out before her, running the fingertips of the other across it, touching the space where Rei's fingers had brushed, if only briefly, over hers- what Asuka believes was Rei's way of saying goodbye.

* * *

Things aren't the same as they were before, but then again, how could they ever be? No touch of Rei's, no matter how intimate or dwelling, can dispel the memories that flock to the fore of Asuka's mind whenever they're close together. It's a paradox: the nearer to each other they are, the more vividly Asuka is reminded that Rei will likely leave, and in the event that she doesn't, that fear will linger within Asuka, never truly gone.

Rei _is_ closer, though. There's no denying the brief touches in the halls as they pass each other, those moments alone when they can make it to the rooftop, or linger in the locker rooms as they did before, and hold hands. When they're not talking, the silences are suffocating in the same way Asuka always imagined their first kiss would be: needy, desperate, an attempt to say the things that couldn't be spoken between them.

Slipping away would be easy for Rei or Asuka. All it would take was a single opportunity missed to be with one another, a touch that goes unanswered, a gaze across the classroom that's seen but not returned. They're both still here, and that's what confuses Asuka the most. She could step away at any time, but she wants this; it would seem that Rei does, too, since she hasn't mentioned the Commander and changes the topic every time Asuka brings him up.

So they stay, holding each other at arm's length, dancing around these feelings that, for every day that goes by, turn from an impasse into their new normal. One day, Asuka finds herself wondering if Rei considers her _sufficient_ , and it's not the inadequate feeling that's haunted her before that fills her breast, but overwhelming relief. She touches her fingers to Rei's, lets Rei be the one who reaches for her hand, and doesn't ask for more than Rei is willing to give. The more that Asuka hoped for regresses into a distant dream, visited rarely in her sleep, and pushed aside in the waking world as an impossibility.

Their lunches on the rooftop become spontaneous, less a question of whether Asuka's prepared or not, but if Rei's brought a lunch, if the door is open, if the weather is sunny and doesn't threaten to dump rain on their heads. It hasn't happened yet, but Asuka suspects Rei would insist on eating up there regardless. She still wonders if the Commander might know or suspect, if it even matters to Rei- if to her, being with Asuka matters more.

Asuka would be content without an answer, but in that fashion her life has recently undertaken, she receives one. She and Rei, occupying their own world together on the roof, have just touched hands. As always, Rei's is warm, a bit like the summer sun that Asuka won't be feeling on her skin for a few more long months. Asuka looks at her, admiring her, but keeps it hidden. It's a fear of hers, never stated or admitted, that someday she'll get too close again, and that'll be what sends Rei away. Today the red bow around Rei's neck, frayed at the edges- a sign that this couldn't be Rei's- is crooked.

Asuka reaches over across Rei, who's snuggled up against her shoulder, and straightens it out. When she tries to pull back, there's a hand wrapped around her wrist. Rei's eyes, hidden behind her bangs, glimmer up at Asuka.

Suddenly, she's closer. Asuka didn't see her move. She blinked, maybe the world stood still, maybe she's been transported to another world where she and Rei never parted by an Angel. Rei tilts her head forward, slowly, until their foreheads touch. Asuka's vision is occupied solely by Rei; she takes in a breath to speak, and Rei's fingers find her lips, silencing her.

Her breath, having nowhere to go, seeps from her lungs and into the corners of her being, warming her. Her chest aches; this is the closest they've been, but it's not enough. She wants something more than just Rei's hand on her lips. Asuka closes her eyes- maybe she could imagine it, or Rei would surprise her- and the hand moves away.

The moment endures for what feels like an eternity. Rei's breath travels Asuka's mouth, hot and wet like the air from a summer storm. There's something else, what might be a sigh that shakes Rei's body, but nothing after that.

At last, Rei pulls back. Asuka doesn't open her eyes. There's still that hope within her- foolish, unquenchable, a reflection of her younger self that she refuses to let the world see- but even that dies quickly. When she at last gets to her feet and looks around, Rei is gone. She's been long gone, and on the horizon in the direction she'd sat is a gathering of clouds, dark and nebulous, slowly slouching their way towards Tokyo-3.

* * *

Rei doesn't show up at the gate after school, nor had she been in class when Asuka returned from the roof. Asuka suspects, as she'd known would happen all along, that Rei has tired of her at last. They'll be returning to their previous arrangement of wordlessly refusing to acknowledge each other's presence, save for those moments in combat when they would have to talk to each other to survive (which, for Asuka, had been every moment).

The storm from before is rolling in fast, already drenching the eastern edges of the city with fat, pelting raindrops. Between those and the clouds that blot out the sky, turning it the dark color of a moonless night, Asuka has no choice other than to return home. It'd have been useless anyway, she knows, to have waited for Rei. Rei, when she's made up her mind, is decisive; if she's tried Asuka again and deemed her inadequate, nothing Asuka can do would sway her.

Misato isn't home when Asuka arrives at the apartment. Shinji must be, but the silence tells Asuka he must be curled up in his room, listening to music and trying to do homework- something ordinary like that. Asuka sighs, fumbling with her keys as she unlocks the door. Leave it to Shinji to still think like a civilian, not a pilot, whose live should revolve around risks and adventure- but maybe he does have a point; he's not the one, after all, whose heart has been broken.

Just as Asuka manages to open the door, there's a sound from behind her. She notices the men first: wearing suits and sunglasses even in this weather, they stand out more than Rei, who clutches something against her drenched uniform with clammy, shaking arms. Wordlessly, Rei unfolds them from her chest and extends, with both hands, a dry white envelope.

Asuka takes it in equal silence, looking at Rei rather than what she's just been given. There has to be an answer for her sudden disappearance, if only Asuka can puzzle it out. The only thing she notices that's different about Rei is the state of her uniform, its second button missing and held together instead by a safety pin. Maybe that was it. Maybe in Rei's haste to leave the rooftop, she'd torn her uniform, and… no, it wouldn't make sense-

Her message delivered, Rei turns and begins to leave with the men from Section 2. She doesn't look back at Asuka as they depart, as she'd done on those days when Asuka walked her home. Asuka steps after them, arm lifted slightly, Rei's name caught in her throat- but what would she say?- and by the time Asuka has worked that out, Rei and the men are gone.

Asuka, left in the doorway with the envelope and still stunned, manages to get into the apartment and lock the door behind her. She staggers past Shinji in his room, who hadn't heard her enter, and enters her own, kicking the door shut behind her. Her legs, uncertain, pitch her onto the bed. Rei's envelope rattles in her hands, something solid scraping her palm. Asuka tears it open, a jagged rip at the top, and turns it over. Its contents tumble into her lap: a letter, a button; a goodbye.


	4. Epilogue: This Disease Called Love

There are no windows in this part of the hospital wing, but Rei knows it's night, somehow. Her knowledge of the world, although fragmented, tells her it couldn't be any other time than night. It tells her other things, too: whispers of memories, of tanks filled with bubbling orange liquid and a resounding, strong voice giving her orders; flashes of red too vivid to be inanimate, and a stabbing pain in her chest so severe it makes her wonder if she isn't truly alive, just in between and waiting for death to come pick her up.

Rei lifts a hand, touching it to the side of her face. Her fingers brush a bandage, wrapped firmly around her head, and her head throbs, the pulse of it traveling up into her hand. Again her vision flashes with the color red- perhaps the fading remnants of a dream, or else brought on by the aches in her body.

And now, another thought: _return to your apartment. Await my orders_. Those had been the last instructions given to her, back when she was in the tank. Rei pushes herself upright, and the world spins around her. She pushes past the dizziness, willing herself to slide off the edge of the bed and onto shaky legs. She's overcome worse before- _when?-_ and as she staggers to the door, she notices she's clothed not in a standard hospital gown, but in her school uniform.

The hallway outside Rei's room is, as expected, abandoned. Briefly the thought crosses Rei's mind that her waking up at night, when most of the NERV staff have gone home, is too convenient to be a coincidence. Rei extends a hand, her fingers making contact with the wall. Leaning against it, she follows it down to the elevator, closing the distance with uncertain steps. She's never seen the elevator before, and yet she's found it without even trying. 'The apartment' is a place she doesn't remember ever visiting, but she knows where it can be found- on the outskirts of Tokyo-3, hidden away in a series of turns down nameless streets that would confuse even those familiar with the city's layout.

There are even more discrepancies, if Rei thinks hard about them. She knows the name of a boy- Shinji Ikari- but not what he looks like. She imagines he might look something like the Commander. She knows of a school that she'll be expected to attend the following day, and she knows very little is expected of her there. Her head pounds- Rei staggers, and there's brick coming up to meet her shoulder- and her vision fills with red again.

The sooner she reaches the apartment, Rei thinks, the better. The scraping of her footsteps drifts up to her ears, echoing alongside the ringing in her head. The dark cover of nightfall only just soothes the aching in her temples, and it worsens when she walks under the few flickering street lights that point the way to a home she shouldn't know about.

It doesn't make sense- nothing seems to. Rei squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, reaching for the tangle of memories and words she's been trying to unravel since she woke up in the hospital bed. Her name is Rei Ayanami and her designation is First Child. She pilots Evangelion Unit-00. She takes orders from Commander Ikari, and he ordered her to go home. None of this explains how she knows any of this.

The realization, when it comes, causes Rei to stumble, her foot snagging on the threshold of her apartment. _Clone, replaceable-_ the words weigh heavily in her mind, and Rei's recollection of them sends her spiraling into a slump against the nearest wall, grasping vainly at it for anything to slow her descent. Her head throbs _red_ \- it passes- and now everything makes sense. What's been passed down to her, a combination of sterilized memories and hand-picked knowledge, rumbles ominously in the back of her mind. Faintly, Rei reaches up and pushes the door shut. It clicks into place with a snap that sends shudders through her, and when Rei looks up again, it's blissfully dark.

The only light that fills Rei's apartment trickles in from a window by her bed, throwing a silver circle on her bedside table and the bandages strewn across the floor beside it. Rei pulls herself towards it on all fours, gripping the side of the bed and pulling herself up onto it. The springs protest, creaking as she settles herself onto it, and at last Rei finds herself able to relax: this is familiar to her.

Now settled, Rei surveys the rest of the apartment, acquainting herself with it. She remembers the tea kettle that she rarely ever used, the closet full of identical school uniforms, and her table, covered in all the medications prescribed to her by Doctor Akagi. The dosages come instinctively to her, so deeply ingrained that Rei isn't certain whether they're a memory or something programmed into her. Her eyes drift, wandering between the bottles, stopping suddenly- she's found something out of place.

There's a red ribbon lying on the table, frayed at both ends and tattered along its edges, and it doesn't belong to her. All her uniforms, save the one she's wearing, are in the closet. It must have come home with her somehow, Rei thinks. She must have meant to throw it out. Her hand reaches out, still shaking, to grasp at the ribbon. It slides between her fingers, the fabric smooth to the touch, so light that it might not even be there. Rei clenches her hand, crumpling it. Her gaze falls upon the trash bin next to the table. It would be the easiest thing she's done tonight, to extend her hand and let the ribbon fall into the bin, but her arm refuses to move. It remains clamped tightly to her side, frozen, and beside it in her chest is her heart, beating madly.

Rei's hand opens, and the ribbon flutters back down to the table. Rei presses her palms to the sides of her head, trying to soothe the pounding sensation that's taken up residence there. There's red, flashing behind her closed eyelids, fleeting and painful. Rei sinks down against the bed, the cool pillow beneath her cheek offering little relief. The lights dancing in front of her bring forth memories, searing the sound of the Commander's voice into her mind. And beneath it all, something else- if only she could reach a bit further- but it's always out of grasp, hidden by a swarm of commands and expectations, just far enough away that she knows it could never be hers.

* * *

Everything has gone so smoothly today that Rei couldn't be faulted for wondering if everything from the night before was a dream. Nothing's been out of place, from the dead silence when she woke to the teacher's droning lecture. Outside, there's a calm blue sky and the jumble of high rises protruding into it, so calm that it seems impossible that yesterday Rei had been dropped into the world, confused and hurting.

The teacher pauses to turn a page, and there's a definite shift in the classroom. It's enough to shift Rei's gaze away from the window. She tilts her head slightly, searching for the source of the disturbance, and there it is: that red again. It doesn't come from within her this time, but from across the room: the Second Child- Asuka- is looking at her. No, not looking- watching. There's a hard sheen to Asuka's eyes that Rei feels like she should remember, boring straight into her. Rei blinks, and for a second she wonders if Asuka can somehow see inside her, if she knows exactly what Rei is.

Asuka looks away, turning back towards the teacher. Rei lingers, frozen, until she remembers how to suck in a breath. It tangles in her throat on the way down, and she returns her gaze to the window. For a moment, the sun angles itself into her eyes, and Rei squints them shut. Had it always been that bright, its touch so harsh that it might be called burning? She shakes her head, laying it down on the desk. There it is again: that feeling that she's being watched. Rei knows without looking back that the Second Child is staring at her with an intensity like that of the sun itself. She can almost hear Asuka's voice in her head, just barely. There's the general tone of it, but none of what Asuka would say. Rei Ayanami should not know what the Second Child would say. Such a prediction would imply a closeness that shouldn't be there. The Commander would never tolerate it.

There could only be one answer to such strange behavior. Something must be wrong with the Second Child. Against her better judgement, Rei turns just slightly, observing Asuka out of the corner of her eye. She's right- Asuka was watching her- but in that moment before Asuka whips her head around, hair obscuring their line of sight, she catches in Asuka's gaze some desperate spark that Asuka is frantic to hide.

A simultaneous scraping of metal jars Rei from her assessment of Asuka. She'd missed Hikari's verbal command to stand; she's a second late in joining her classmates in rising while the teacher exits the classroom. Through a gap between the desks, Rei notes that Asuka didn't bother to get up at all. A frown tugs at the edges of Rei's lips, lingering for long enough for Rei to realize the effect Asuka's inaction has had on her.

Rei reaches for her bag, her hair obscuring the troubled look on her face for the briefest of moments. When she straightens back up, Asuka is gone, having pushed through the slow stream of students meandering towards the door. No doubt there's somewhere she needs to go; there's something she needs to attend to that deserves her attention far more than Rei Ayanami. Rei exhales- a hard, unexpected sigh- and trudges after her classmates.

She makes it no further than just outside the doorway when a hand wraps around her upper arm, pulling her down the hall. Asuka tugs insistently with every other step, rapidly dragging Rei around a corner. Rei finds herself with her back pushed against the wall as soon as they're out of their classmates' sight, and Asuka's stare is back, as intense as ever. Her lips, parted slightly, move silently, as if Asuka is unable to speak. The fingers that grasp onto Rei's arms tighten with bruising force, and all it takes is a wince from Rei for Asuka to freeze, her eyes now wide and frantic, mouth slack.

"Are you well, Soryu?" It's easy now for Rei to pry Asuka's hands away and shove them back at her. Asuka staggers back a half step, her gaze still fixed on Rei, though now it's itself into an expression that Rei can't find a name for. She curls her fingers against her palms and unfurls them again, as if she's only now noticed the absence of Rei in her hands. "If you are feeling unwell, you should consult Doctor Akagi."

"I'm not-" Asuka begins, reaching for Rei again. Her hand comes up short, just brushing against the ribbon tied neatly around the neck of Rei's uniform. A ragged breath escapes her open mouth, and she retreats against the opposite wall, visibly trembling. "Since when do you care?" she gasps, her voice cracking. "You don't. I'm just another pilot to you, aren't I?"

"What are you suggesting, Soryu?"

"That you stop saying things like you care and just act like the doll the Commander wants you to be!"

"I am not-"

"Shut _up!_ "

Asuka's palm smacks against the wall with an echo that resonates louder than anything that Asuka's said so far. For a moment, Asuka takes her eyes off Rei, glancing around for anyone that might have heard, that might come to investigate. The look on her face is familiar now, but distantly so. A thought comes to mind, a memory: the tube full of bubbling orange liquid, and the reflection of her own face in it, no longer impassive but etched in a shape similar to Asuka's- only, she can't recall ever being in that room-

"You know what?" Asuka says. "Maybe you're right. I am sick. After all, I- I'm here with you."

"Then you will go to Akagi?"

"I thought you knew me better than…" Asuka wrests herself away from the wall, taking a few steps back the way they came. "No. I'm not going to see her. Don't you go telling anyone, either."

"If it will affect your piloting-" Rei starts to say, but Asuka's already stormed off, shaking her head like that would somehow stop Rei's words from reaching her. She's gone just as suddenly as she'd pulled Rei away from the others, and even the angry cadence of her steps quickly fades against the sounds of doors opening and voices chattering. Rei takes a moment before following in Asuka's steps, ensuring that her uniform appears as it should.

Asuka hadn't come close enough to dislodge the ribbon, but the sight of it still sends Rei's stomach into a turmoil. She thinks of another ribbon at home, left on the drawer- she'd forgotten about it when she woke up this morning- and the pit of her stomach turns hot. Uneasily, she goes to rejoin her classmates in the next hall over, making a mental note to herself to avoid further contact with Asuka until her apparent illness has passed. She'll keep her interactions down to what's expected of her, mostly sync tests. She'll ignore the looks Asuka gives her in class, and that should dissuade her. Rei nods to herself, the matter resolved, but even she can't ignore the sinking feeling in her gut and the image that lingers in her mind: Asuka, her eyes clouded with disappointment, gazing at Rei from across a room that she doesn't recognize.

* * *

The apartment is empty when Rei enters, and with that she's made the journey home without anything eventful happening. Rei places her bag on the floor and settles herself on the edge of her bed, still on edge. Today, it wouldn't surprise her if Asuka or the Commander came through her door: unusual, yes, but today it would pass as normal.

It's an eventful day in an otherwise uneventful week. There aren't any sync tests that she'd been informed of, which would make going to school the only thing left to do. If Asuka heeds her advice, Rei thinks- not that she expects Asuka to, but today has been an unusual day- maybe she'd get a break from having to see Asuka there, too.

An uncharacteristically loud sigh leaves Rei's mouth as she settles back against the bed. She doesn't stay down for long: her gaze, finding nothing interesting in the ceiling, has drifted to the table where the ragged ribbon from before still lies. A bolt of heat lances through her, settling in her chest: she'd felt something like this once before, in the moments after her waking, accompanied by those pangs and flashes of red. Rei presses a hand to her head, closing her eyes. Between what had happened with Asuka and the walk home, she'd forgotten about those things; now they taunt her, pieces of a puzzle that Rei can't begin to fit together.

The Second Child is sick- she'd acknowledged it. She'd been looking at Rei. Rei, who'd been replaced just a day before. Rei's stomach lurches, and she grips the side of the bed for stability. If the previous Rei had been sick, she could have passed it on to Asuka. Which would mean- Rei's hand shakes against the mattress- if she caught the sickness from Asuka, she would be terminated again.

The words should sound right in her mind. That's the one truth Rei knows, that's been drilled into her even before she first opened her eyes. Rei Ayanami has always been expendable. Rei rolls onto her side, facing away from the table. The knowledge of her own replaceability rattles hollowly in her chest, drowning amidst a sea of worry. For once, Commander Ikari holds no sway over her. The knowledge that there are more of her- Rei's imagined thought of rows and rows of tubes is replaced by the memory of that orange tube with her reflection in it- fails to anchor her.

Rei sweeps her arm across the bed, pulling her pillow against her body. It shudders against her with every rasping breath, and when Rei draws back to gather more air, the wetness in her eyes stings her cheeks. The pillow yields beneath her hands, softness barely pushing through her fingers as she clings to it, as if the thought of it offers her more safety than she could find in this place she's supposed to protect. Her mind wanders to her past self and to Asuka. Is this what they'd felt, this confusion that must be brought on by their illness, a delirium?

Something in that thought unravels the tension gathered in Rei's chest. It seems like the air around her has rushed in to fill that void: there's too much of it in her; she thinks she might scream if she could work past the chill that's seized her body to open her mouth. This must have been why Asuka couldn't speak at first when she'd pulled Rei aside. Now Rei presses her forehead to the pillow, squeezing her eyes shut, silently pleading for darkness and sleep to come take her, and if she's lucky, that it'll be another Rei who wakes in the morning, free of this ailment that Asuka's passed to her.

Asuka, Asuka. Try as she might, sleep continues to evade Rei. She lies still and awake, curled tightly against herself, palms sweaty against the pillow, the events of the day playing endlessly in her head until they drift with her into her dreams. Asuka is there, too, her hands feverish as they touch Rei's cheeks and linger, burning in the darkness of the coming morning.

* * *

Every time Asuka tries to sleep on her back, a beam of moonlight pokes through the closed blinds and shines on her face. It's this, and not the thoughts that have followed her in her waking moments, that's keeping her up.

Asuka lifts her hand and drags it down her face, repeating the only motion she's made since she first laid down. Her fingers trail over her closed eyelids, a brief respite from the silvery glare of the moon. Today, when Rei had spoken, there was no trace of the warmth Asuka once knew in it. She'd known it, tried to accept it from the moment she finished reading Rei's last letter, but it's only been- how long, now? Three days, at most?

And her eyes; god, her eyes. Asuka hadn't expected them to look so strikingly similar. They were unblemished, not worn with the fatigue that had rested so naturally upon Rei's frame. They were bright, so bright, with none of the veiled enthusiasm that Asuka had learned to recognize.

Asuka's head lolls to one side, pulled unconsciously towards her desk. How foolish she'd been, how naive, to have written another letter in hopes that she could give it to Rei. What else could she have expected? That, somehow, it'd be the same Rei that she saw in class? There's a reason it's still in the desk, and not in Asuka's schoolbag.

What had that been in the classroom today, anyway? Their eyes had met for a moment, and all that Asuka could make of Rei's expression was confusion. That much was obvious. But after that, when she'd been watching her, thinking that Asuka couldn't see her looking- Asuka knows that wasn't pity. There isn't enough emotion in this Rei for her to know what pity would be. To think that for a moment, Asuka had almost believed that Rei could feel, feel _sorry_ for everything-

Asuka's eyes snap open. She's on her feet and by the drawer in what feels like a second. Those steps she'd have to have taken to get to the desk never existed. Her hands plunge into the drawer and come up full of paper. It'd been stupid to believe, after that first separation, that anything good could have happened- that anything could have been salvaged-

She rips a letter in half and tears into the pieces with her nails. It crumbles under her touch like brittle sand. When she's done, she starts on the next one. And another. The stack in front of her dwindles, becoming a sea of ragged white that surrounds the place where she kneels on the floor. How could she have allowed herself to lose her grip on the certainties of reality, to think that there was even a chance that she might hold Rei one more time? She reaches blindly for another letter. The words blur before her eyes, illegible. If Rei can't read them, there's no reason for Asuka to, either.

Asuka reaches down, stubbing her fingers against the floor. Only a single letter remains, lying just out of reach, having escaped the immediate destruction that befell the others. Asuka reaches for it, and her legs give way, numb from kneeling for so long. In the light from the window, Asuka makes out a single sentence at the edge of the page, squeezed in between the lines with cramped letters: _Have you figured out what your favorite color is yet?_

The letter slips away, pushed under the desk by a swipe of Asuka's hands. She grasps at empty air, lying prone on the floor, and gazes at the darkness into which the letter has vanished. She thinks, fleetingly, of the old Rei: lost to a similar, permanent nothingness.

The thought shatters the delicate balance that Asuka's held in her chest since she finished reading Rei's letter. Her hand slams into the desk, rattling it against the wall; she hears Shinji, in the next room over, stir from his sleep. She presses her knuckles to her mouth, eyes filling with a familiar, hated wetness, and at last allows herself to admit what she's denied all day, what she'd refused to believe as true: it's her fault that Rei is gone. Her persistence, her unbridled affection for Rei that she'd deluded herself into believing could be reciprocated- it had all led to this.

She'd led to this.

Trembling on the floor, Asuka gathers herself into a ball as best as she can, pressing her forehead to her knees as her tears trickle down her knees. "She's right," she manages to whisper, and the shadows gathered in the corners of her room seem to tremble in agreement. There must be something wrong with her, they say. Otherwise, Rei wouldn't have been taken; otherwise, she'd be as good of a pilot as she claimed to be; otherwise, she wouldn't be so alone.

* * *

Through the window of the classroom, Rei could see both the city, rugged buildings worn by rough weather and Angel incursions, and if she focused, the interior of the room behind her reflected in the glass. For the first time in Rei's life- in _any_ Rei's life- she's been watching those reflections instead. The image of Asuka, sitting resolutely at her desk, hasn't wavered as Rei thought it would. Asuka's eyes haven't once wandered in her direction, staying trained on the empty space of the chalkboard, occasionally glancing at the clock at the back of the room.

She can't deny this sensation any longer. Rei has to admit it to herself: she's wanted Asuka to look at her all day. She's longed for the few seconds that Asuka's eyes are on her, burning through her in a way that even the Commander's most chilling expressions cannot; she's _wanted_ it in a way she knows she's never felt before.

The reflection of Asuka shifts uneasily in her seat, looking down at her nails, then back up at the teacher. Her gaze, angled specifically away from the windows, trails along the far wall. Though Rei can't see Asuka's eyes, she imagines they'd be the same as she remembers seeing them last: listless, devoid of that spark of life that Rei knows should be there. Her breath hitches, snagging on a lump in her throat. How does she know what should or shouldn't be in Asuka's eyes? To know would suggest she'd looked into them before, and at some length.

The backs of Rei's legs scrape against the edge of her chair. All the eyes in the classroom gravitate to her, save for Asuka's, as she stands abruptly. Rei, her throat suddenly dry, forces a breath into her aching lungs. "I…" she begins, her voice threatening to crack. At the edge of her vision, Asuka finally begins to turn her head, and a sound spills out of Rei's mouth, all at once, surprising even herself. "I do not feel well. I am going home."

She doesn't wait for the teacher's approval, just gathers her bag up in her arms and walks quickly towards the door, ignoring Asuka, who's brought the full brunt of her gaze to bear on Rei. Rei hopes Asuka doesn't notice the stutter in her step as she reaches the hall, forcing herself to continue. Craving for Asuka's attention is enough of an abnormality. That she'd even considered stopping is just proof that Rei's worries from the night before aren't unfounded.

Lost in her own thoughts, Rei doesn't hear the footsteps coming down the hallway until they're right behind her. She turns, expecting Hikari: surely if anyone was to come after her, it would be the class rep. Asuka stares back at her instead, face flushed, breathing heavily into the space between them.

"Ayanami," Asuka says, reaching for Rei's arm. Rei pulls herself back, and Asuka scowls. "The hell are you doing?"

"I have said I feel unwell." Rei casts a glance behind her, calculating the distance to the front doors. If she could catch Asuka off guard, she stands a chance of making it. "I do not want to risk anyone else becoming sick because of me."

"You look just fine to me." Asuka folds her arms over her chest, glare becoming sharper. "Don't tell me you're still going on about-"

"Whatever it is you have, I believe I have caught it."

Asuka's jaw drops slightly, and it's in that moment that Rei turns and runs. Her gait is irregular, uneven, but her feet are light against the floor and she's halfway down hall before Asuka can gather herself.

She could run after Rei. Even now, it wouldn't take too much of an effort, or too much time, to catch up to her. Asuka grits her teeth, starting forward, but then her legs refuse to move. If she was seen chasing after Rei, if Section 2 was watching the school- and she knows they will be- then Rei would be suspect again. Reaching out blindly, she steadies herself against a wall, fighting down the nausea rising into her chest. No, Asuka decides. She won't go after Rei. She can't. She will not be the reason another iteration of Rei gets killed.

The doors slam open as Rei hurries through them, and for a moment all Asuka can see of her figure is the shadow of it, escaping into the sunlight outside. Had she thought there was a chance that Rei might come back, or that even now she might somehow wordlessly persuade Rei to return, she would have raised her hand towards it. Instead, she simply stands there, letting the wall bear her weight; through the sound of the doors swinging closed, she imagines how hollow her footsteps will sound on the way back to the classroom, and if that was how it had sounded like when Rei went willingly to her end.

* * *

For once, Rei's encountered a problem that Doctor Akagi cannot help her with. She'd entertained the thought for all of a few seconds after she'd made it out of the school- could she go to NERV?- but that couldn't be an option. If the Commander had been so willing to terminate one clone that had lived so long for feeling something even remotely similar, he could do the same again.

Now, sitting on her creaky bed, Rei asks herself why she'd even been afraid of that idea in the first place. The entire framework of her existence hinged upon being replaceable, but here she is instead: curled up at the edge of her bed, resting her chin upon her knees, too afraid of the concept of her own ending to go to NERV for help.

Perhaps, Rei thinks, she might be able to find a solution to this on her own. She'd never paid much mind to the medications on her bedside table before, only taking the amounts prescribed to her by Doctor Akagi. She picks one up and reads the label, a jumble of syllables that make no sense to her, and sets that one aside. The others are similar: all long, complicated names that Rei can't understand. A feeling of helplessness settles over her, intensifying until the magnitude of it resembles the cluster of pill bottles clumped near one edge of the table.

Rei's hand scrapes against something unfamiliar as she reaches for the last of the bottles. Her fingers brush the ribbon from before, and from her chest there comes a sudden, inexplicable soaring feeling. Yanking her hand away, Rei throws the bottle down, recoiling back across the bed. Once again, Rei draws her eyes across the uniforms in her closet, counting them all, even though she knows what the answer will be before she's even begun. She knows that ribbon can't belong to any of her uniforms, that it's out of place, almost like she is.

Reaching out, Rei seizes the ribbon, holding it away for herself as she inches towards the edge of the bed. Even as she holds it over the waste bin, she feels it: the sense of wrongness that permeates through both it and herself. The ribbon's frayed edge swings precariously over the bin, just dangling along the edge of it. All she'd have to do is let go, and it'd be gone. She won't have to look at it until the next time she goes to dump out her trash, and even then it'll be on its way to being forever removed from her life.

Rei holds on to the ribbon instead, eyes following its gentle sway, transfixed by the fading red. Her gaze trails down it, coming to rest atop yet another unexpected sight: a small pile of crumpled up paper, squeezed into neat little round shapes and compacted into the bottom of the bin. Almost immediately- as if she's subconsciously grateful for any reason to distract herself for even a moment longer- Rei tosses the ribbon aside and reaches for the bin with both hands, pulling it up to the bed. The nauseous rolling in her chest ceases as she dumps the papers across the edge of her bed, selecting one at random and opening it carefully.

The handwriting is hers, but she had never written this. Rei squints at the paper clasped in clammy hands, trying to make sense of it. The words aren't hers, but the framework of the sentences are. She could never have written about _friends, sunflowers, rooftops_. The tightness in her chests returns, twice as strong as before, reaching up and seizing the base of her throat. There's no doubt in her mind that this letter, the contents of the bin, are fragments of some of Rei Ayanami's last moments. Repulsed, she shoves the bin away; it clatters to the floor, rolling around, spilling even more papers in its wake.

Rei puts the letter down, rubbing at her eyes to clear the blurriness. This must be, without a doubt, what had caused the last Rei Ayanami to be terminated. There is nothing in the truth of the world that says Rei Ayanami was ever allowed to desires beyond the Commander's, or that she could ever not be replaced. But it's here, in front of her, written by her own hand.

Her fingers trembling, Rei grabs another paper from the edge of the bed. This one's written in a darker shade: there are so many crumpled letters that a single pencil couldn't possibly have been used to write them all. As she smooths it out, her eyes fall upon the same words from before, surrounded by different ones. She tries not to look too hard, but the words pop out at her, burning themselves into her mind. _You have made me more happy-_ a sentence begins, and Rei has to throw the letter away before anything else can come to mind. Already she's imagining a smile she's never seen, hearing an impossible laugh. Scrambling across the bed, Rei opens another letter, this one written with a light and shaking hand. There are more places where words have been crossed out than words themselves, but in their midst Rei identifies a single phrase, and it's the clearest of them all.

At last, a name for this disease. The letter slips from Rei's limp fingers. Her legs sweep out, kicking the rest onto the floor. Rei makes no attempt to pick them up: there'll be time for that tomorrow before school; she knows she'll be up early, if she's even able to sleep tonight. How could she sleep, now that she knows what the symptoms of this disease are, that she can detect the beginnings of them inside herself? How could she do anything other than lie awake, wishing for answers that, for once, the Commander can't give her?

Rei lies still upon her bed, waiting for the slow advance of morning to overtake and end the longest night of her life, perhaps of even all her lives. As the dawn encroaches upon her, so does a single thought, refusing to be brushed aside and lingering with the mixing light of the moon and sun on the far wall: she understands now that the void she'd seen in Asuka's eyes was not that, but rather a searching for something that Asuka knew she wouldn't find in Rei's. And knowing that, how foolish would she be, to hope that these symptoms in herself might be mirrored in Asuka; that after everything and all that she is, Asuka might still find some ounce of love for Rei Ayanami?

* * *

For the fifth time in as many minutes, Asuka looks at Rei's empty seat, and the tangle of emotions nestled in her stomach churns itself into a storm. It isn't like Rei to be this late; but, she reminds herself, this isn't the Rei she knew. It wouldn't surprise her to learn that Rei had gone wandering, exploring unfamiliar streets, or that her tardiness was borne of a simple desire to see as little of Asuka as necessary. After their confrontation the day before, Asuka wouldn't blame her for it.

Again, Asuka's eyes drift back to Rei's desk. How selfish of herself would it be, she wonders, to wish for something like the chance to do everything over, for the privilege of standing over Rei's desk in each other's quiet company, rather than something like an end to the Angel attacks? Even then, there'd be no guarantee that one or both of them might not be killed by Angels, or that their relationship would be so lucky as to go unnoticed. Perhaps it's for the best that Asuka seems to have driven this Rei away, or- a cold sliver of fear embeds itself in Asuka's gut- could the Commander have found out about what happened yesterday? Could the Commander have done what comes so easily to him, and replaced Rei yet again-

Asuka shakes her head, bringing it down to her desk, where she hides her face in the crook of her arm. Between heaving breaths, she tries to console herself: there's no way anyone would have known what happened, unless Rei spoke of it. Even so, if Asuka tried to speak to Rei again, the possibility of the Commander finding out would always hang over her head. The only way to be certain, for Rei not to die at the hands of anything other than Angels, would be if Asuka kept her distance.

So that's it, then. Asuka isn't sure if the smile that touches her face is one of relief or something else, and now she's glad that no one can see her expression. If anyone could, they'd know something was wrong: she's never smiled like this before.

A murmur goes up in the classroom. Asuka lifts her head, thinking the teacher's walked in, but it's only Rei, entering just a few minutes before class is supposed to start. She goes straight to her desk, ignoring the whispers of her classmates and Shinji's inquisitive stare. Only when she's set her bag down on the ground does she turn her head: not towards the window, but to the back of the room.

And their eyes meet. Asuka hears herself suck in a breath, and that sliver from before twists itself in deeper. She doesn't realize that her mouth has formed, unconsciously, the shape of Rei's name until Rei turns away just as suddenly, with what looked like doubt shadowing her face.

She doesn't look back for the entire lesson. Asuka sits there with her head cradled in her arms, watching Rei, who does nothing other than stare at the window. For once, Asuka wonders what might be out there that Rei finds so interesting. The sky; the clouds? Would she even have it in her to think about a future in which there are no more Angels? Or would this Rei have it in herself to imagine, at the end of all this, she would no longer have to see Asuka any longer, and take comfort in it?

Rei shifts around in her seat. Across the room, Asuka stifles the involuntary flinch that ripples through her body. She twists her head from side to side, trying to shake off the feeling of uneasiness that's settled over her. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Rei tilt her head inquisitively at the window. So that's it; there's something out there that's more interesting to Rei, and though she knows it's for the best, it doesn't stop an upwelling of bitterness from gathering at the base of Asuka's throat.

From then on, Asuka is still, gazing halfheartedly across the classroom at Rei, who's content to continue looking out the window. She doesn't move until the beginning of the lunch period, and neither does Asuka. It's then that Rei rises on wobbly legs, making her way slowly across the classroom, trailing her fingers along the edges of the desks beside her intended path. Her chin bobs slightly, dipping towards her chest, and then- the world vanishes beneath Asuka again, and when she takes her next breath, she finds her lungs achingly empty. Rei's brilliant eyes vanish as for a moment as she blinks, once, and then she's gone: walking out of the class with the same measured steps that had brought her to the doorway.

Asuka has her palms flat on the desk and the weight of her body centered on the balls of her feet before she remembers what she'd told herself. She shouldn't go- she _can't_ , she thinks- but in the next moment, she's surged to her feet, following Rei with a stride too hurried, to urgent, to be spurred by anything other than desperation.

Asuka makes it into the hall in time to see Rei vanishing into the stairway at the end of the corridor. She stumbles after her, her legs finding the floor to be simultaneously closer than she remembered and too far all at once. It takes her what feels like an age to reach the stairs, a warping of time the likes of which she'd only felt before when fighting Angels. Ascending the stairs goes just as slowly, but Rei is there at the top, standing with her hands clasped together before her in front of the rooftop door, something small and wrinkled clutched in them.

"So what is it?" Asuka asks from the next landing down. Her hand reaches out and grips the rail tightly, knuckles paling quickly, but can't bring herself to take another step. If she did, she knew she'd fall. "You wanted me to follow you, right? Why'd you bring me here?"

"I…"

Rei looks down at the crumpled paper in her hands, holding it out towards Asuka. It's a letter, she realizes: she can recognize it by the handwriting, though it's not hers.

"I found this. It was in my room," Rei says.

"I don't need to see it," Asuka snaps. "I don't want to."

Rei tilts her head, surveying Asuka from her position atop the stairs, withdrawing the letter slightly. "Are you well, Soryu?" she asks, and Asuka hates that her heart beats faster at the sound.

"What does it matter to you?"

"You have been acting strangely today," Rei says, ignoring the question. Slowly, she lowers her eyes, staring blankly at the space between her hands, as if there is no letter there, only empty air. "This. All of these. They are the reason you are sick, aren't they?"

"You were watching me." The realization drives home, hitting Asuka in the hollow of her stomach. Somehow, she finds it in herself to pull herself up the stairs, agonizing over each step, until she's at eye level with Rei. "Where did you find that?"

"In my room. In the trash. There were… many." Rei's voice grows hushed, and Asuka recognizes the fear that hovers at the edges of it. She'd heard it before, on the rooftop, in the unspoken apology that Rei had tried to give her when she'd begged Asuka's forgiveness. "She… I…" Rei's lips tremble, and at last she guides her eyes to find Asuka's. "Is this what you are sick with?"

"Yes."

The word hardly passes through Asuka's lips: she breathes it out into the stairwell, and it's gone. She'd never thought it possible that Rei, too, might have something like the tens of incomplete, unsent letters that had littered her room. The Rei in front of her tightens her grasp on the letter, as if hoping to draw something from it: courage, or the memories of her other self.

"And this is called love?"

"Yes."

"I…" Rei begins, and Asuka knows what should come next. How often had she heard Rei say the words _I understand_? But instead, Rei brushes past her, slowly walking down the stairs. "I will have to think about this," she murmurs. Her fingers move around the letter with an uncanny precision, folding it into a square small enough to be carried around in the pocket of her uniform.

"Rei, wait."

Asuka staggers down the stairs, all thoughts of keeping her balance gone from her mind. She catches Rei's wrist as her momentum carries her into the wall, which she slumps against, letting it hold her up. "I'm sorry," she says, and immediately she regrets it. This isn't her Rei; this Rei wouldn't know how to tell the ferventness in Asuka's voice apart from anger, nor would she think to look for it. Still, somehow, Rei doesn't pull away from her.

"What do you have to be sorry for?" Rei asks.

"This only happened because of me." Asuka forces her hand to let go of Rei; now the cold in the stairwell registers, and she shivers against the wall. "If you stay near me, you'll just get hurt. You shouldn't be involved with me."

Something flickers in the depths of Rei's eyes, what Asuka thinks must be realization. Instead, Rei shakes her head, looking once again at the letter concealed in her hand. "No. We are already involved. And you cannot blame yourself for all of this, Soryu." Rei's face twists strangely, and a hint of the old Rei's smile shines fleetingly through it. "I- The other me wanted to be with you as much as you did her."

"How do you know?"

"She told me."

"Is that what that is?" Asuka points at the paper in Rei's hand, squaring her jaw. "A note for the next her?"

"It was meant for you."

"Have I seen it before?"

"I would not know." Rei extends her hand to Asuka, palm up, offering her the letter. "Do you want it?"

"No," says Asuka. "Keep it. It's hers- yours. And- didn't you say you had to think about this?"

"I did."

"Then you keep it." Asuka's voice leaves her as a whisper, oddly weak. She watches Rei tuck the letter back into her pocket. As it vanishes, she feels the strength in her legs, so tentative already at best, beginning to go. "You should go back first," she says. "So no one will suspect anything."

"Very well." Rei steps back, drawing out the distance between them, and then she's gone with nothing more than a whisper of her clothes and the faint tapping of her feet down the stairs. As soon as she's gone, Asuka falls forward, catching herself on her hands. The grit of the stairwell grinds into the heel of her palms, but she remains oblivious to it. What aches instead is her heart: quivering, raw, unprepared for everything Rei had told her. Asuka squeezes her eyes shut, fighting back the sting she can already feel building behind them. Darkness overtakes her vision, and in it she can just begin to imagine what the warmth of Rei's arms around her might feel like again; that Rei might be beside her, holding her as she kneels, shaking, on the polished stairs.

* * *

At half an hour past three, Rei opens the door to her apartment, exactly on schedule. She'd come back immediately after class ended, not stopping to speak to Asuka, nor looking at her. She had felt the eyes of the Second Child following her as she left, and even now, it feels like they're still upon her. Rei sets her bag on the floor, walking slowly towards her bed.

The letters from the wastebasket are still gathered on top of the sheets, straightened out and arranged in rows so Rei could see them all. She pulls out the one from her pocket- the longest one of them all- laying it in the center and climbing onto her bed after it. So much effort, she thinks, her eyes wandering the pages, to try and tell Asuka something: and yet, her past self had thought it worth her time. In the last hours of her existence, her only thought had been to get a message to Asuka.

There was something in Asuka's voice, Rei thinks, that she still can't quite describe. What she would have once called sickness, she now knows is called love; even so, it can't explain away the longing she'd heard, that must have once called out for Rei Ayanami and been answered by a love the scope of which Rei is only beginning to grasp. Lying on her back on the rusted frame of her bed, a single thing is clear to her: even if she were to return Asuka's feelings, whatever Asuka offers in return would never truly belong to her. It would belong to a Rei who could write the kinds of things on those letters strewn in front of her, one she's incapable of being.

It's still better than what the Commander could ever give her. The truth, already ingrained into her mind, is that she is replaceable. But still, the affection that Asuka might have to offer her- the warm that sometimes visits Rei in her dreams- would already be so much more than what the Commander has envisioned for her. And if the end were to be as cold and lonely as her dreams tell her, she would rather have the memory of that warmth than nothing at all. Even if Asuka's affection could never belong to her, she thinks, she would rather have it than not; would rather be looked upon with love, if even for only a few days, than the cold iron that lurks behind the Commander's gaze.

Rolling off the bed, Rei goes over to her bag, placed neatly against the wall. It doesn't take her long to find a paper and pencil, which she carries back to the bed with her. She sets the tip of her pencil to it and sits, lost in thought, her eyes wandering the opposite wall in the vain hope that studying it hard enough might cause the words she's searching for to manifest in her head. Her eyes drift to the her past self's letters, and their words jump out at her in an incomprehensible jumble, trying to string themselves together. A sentence forms; another, flashing by in her mind too quickly for her to remember anything of them, other than that they don't sound like anything she'd say.

That's it, Rei thinks. This way, she can't deny what she's sure Asuka has refused to allow herself to believe; that any part of the old Rei might have survived in her. Slowly, Rei stretches out her hands, gathering the letters up one by one into a single stack. As she leans over the side of her bed, shoving them under her bedside table, her eyes fall upon the ribbon, covered in a thin layer of dust. A pang shoots through her chest, as if seeing the ribbon has caused it to wind itself tightly around her heart, and there's the catalyst she's needed. Her pencil quakes when it meets the paper, but the letters that come from it in a slow stream are steady, unwavering.

As she sits, the sun retreats, leaving the moon to rise into a stillness only periodically broken by the scratching of a pencil. The night winds on and dawn approaches, peering over the horizon to find Rei, still in her uniform, curled up on top of her bed, a pencil clenched in one hand and a paper, half-filled with words, draped across her lap.

* * *

Rei is waiting in the stairwell when Asuka arrives, both her hands clenched into fists to steady her resolve. "I got the note you left in my locker," she says, glaring at the step that Rei is seated on. She doesn't dare look at Rei, not yet, fearing if she does, then the butterflies in her chest would break loose all at once and set her soul to madness. "You said you wanted to talk."

"Yes," Rei says. Asuka twitches: her eyes lift involuntarily, and there under Rei's eyes are dark shadows that seem all too familiar, and a red ribbon tied around her neck that's too frayed to be considered decent.

"What is it?" demands Asuka. Try as she might, she doesn't sound forceful or intimidating at all: just worn down. "What do you want?"

"Will you sit?" Rei asks, looking at the space beside her. Asuka shakes her head, folding her arms over her chest and leveling her best glare at Rei. It's pathetic, compared to some of the other glares she's given people, but this Rei doesn't have to know that.

"It's lunch. I'm in a hurry."

The excuse sounds lame, and falls limply from Asuka's tongue. Rei doesn't react to it, only nodding and speaking again.

"I know I am not the Rei you are accustomed to," she says. "I do not think I can ever be her, but you still look for her in me." Rei leans forward, her shoulders hunching around her neck as she settles her weight on the flats of her feet. "I will never be able to satisfy you in that regard. But, if you are willing…"

Rei hesitates, drawing in a long breath. "You blame yourself for her being taken away, don't you?"

"What does that matter?" Asuka snaps, her hands clenching tighter. "Did you bring me here just to tell me that?"

"I understand if you want nothing more to do with me," says Rei. "But if you do..."

"You think I'd be okay with that?" In the time it takes for Rei to look up, Asuka has closed the distance between them, reaching down and taking Rei's shirt in both hands. She hauls Rei to her feet, pushing her against the stair rail, surveying her through narrowed eyes. "Being with you, when you could be taken from me at any time, when whoever comes next won't even be you, or her?"

"I-" Rei stammers, stopping when Asuka shoves her harder against the rail.

"You think, just because I look at you like that, you can come and say this to me?"

"Second-"

"It's _Asuka_! And you… do you think it's so easy, looking at you? When you…"

Asuka's hands fall away from Rei's shirt, and she takes a step back, slamming into the wall behind her. "How messed up are you?" she asks, directing her question towards the ground. "That both of us could even think of wanting something like this… you really don't know how to do anything else, do you?"

"Asuka…?"

Asuka grabs Rei's shirt again, dragging her closer. Rei stumbles against her, and Asuka's arms envelop her before she can fall: she lands with her head against Asuka's shoulder, and feels Asuka pressing them together.

"And you're the one who called me sick?" she asks, a whisper of a laugh threaded into her voice. "But it's okay, right? It's better this way. At least we'll have each other." Asuka's fingers dig into the small of Rei's back. Rei hears the sharp puff of Asuka's breath as she says, "Well? Say something."

Rei turns her head, and Asuka is looking at her with wet, frantic eyes. If she said anything now, it might be a lie. But, Asuka had told her to, so Rei offers her what she thinks is a smile, lifting her hand to the side of Asuka's face. Asuka gasps, jerking her head away and hiding it in Rei's shirt. Through the sound of her own heavy breathing, she hears, or imagines she hears, Rei's answer:

"Yes."


End file.
